Election promises of Alyaksandr Lukashenka have always been generous. “By 2015 we must bring wages up to the equivalent of $1,000,” promised the head of Belarus in 2010.

Now the 2015 has come, but even in the capital not everyone gets $500. The average salary in May amounted to 5.2 million rubles, which is the equivalent of 350 USD. Revenues of the majority of Belarusians do not even reach this threshold.

The official statistics has also recorded the fall in the living standards.

According to the estimates of the National Statistics Committee, in January-May the real income of the population fell by 5 per cent compared with the same period last year. As for the promised amount, only one in five workers received $500 or more, and every third received half of this amount.

According to the union leader Alyaksandr Yarashuk, in villages and towns people dream of such earnings.

ALYAKSANDR YARASHUK, CONGRESS OF DEMOCRATIC TRADE UNIONS:”The situation in the regions is critical. Both in terms of work and in terms of earnings. There even a 2 million wage is considered a good sum.”

Due to the poor state of the economy, experts predict no ‘generosity stunt’ before the election, which has become a tradition of the presidential campaigns in Belarus.

According to Alyaksandr Yarashuk, this very year Lukashenka can get away with it.

ALYAKSANDR YARASHUK, CONGRESS OF DEMOCRATIC TRADE UNIONS:
“Society has received a very severe psychological trauma due to war that is taking place in Ukraine. Thus, they can now afford – Belarusian authorities – not to look in the direction of higher wages.”

They especially should not promise neither $1,000 nor even 500.

Volha Zharnasek, belsat.eu/en/